Christmas

I have been attempting to find the words to sum up Christmas this year and all I could decide on was difficult, emotional, bittersweet and joyful. This was not the way Christmas was suppose to be! I should not have been at the cemetery on Christmas Day visiting the grave of my two children. Recap of this event was Kevin digging out a path, leaving gifts under their tiny tree, telling them we loved and missed them, crying, uttering words of disbelief and then driving off in an attempt to celebrate with the living. Trying to compose ourselves in the car, to put on a smile, to laugh and to attempt to enjoy a holiday where three (my sons and grandma) intricate parts of my family were missing.

They say that with each year it gets easier? I don't necessarily believe that, I think we learn how to be better prepared on what to expect and experts at faking it. Christmas nor any day for that account will ever be the same in mine or Kevin's eyes or hearts. I will always look under the tree to see presents missing, a family photo minus two of my children, a sister without her twin brothers to love and us without Declan and Lucas. I understand what they mean by "easier", I think what they really mean is to grasp what our "new" normal feels like.

Opening presents was a difficult task this year, watching all the kids unwrap...yet, knowing two were missing. As I sat watching my in-laws open up there gifts for their twin girls, I so desperately wanted to be in their shoes. Very few try to place themselves in our shoes because it is the unthinkable but I longed with all my being to be in theirs. Not to switch places, just wished us both the same blessing of ALL our children alive and well. The tears came as I stared at my sister-in-law as she quietly and distantly acknowledged my unimaginable pain and then at her daughter as I tried to imagine my own son on this day. I have learned that there is a point where I can no longer hold back the tears so, I let them come. I tried to quickly let the grief over take me so, that I could again get it under control. To push it back down so that it won't consume me like it use to do. To enjoy the smile and laughter as I watch Mackenzie run around and play.

For she is the sweet in my bittersweet life. She makes me laugh and smile...ones that are real and sincere. She is the blessing that God left with us here and for her I am trying to live each day to the fullest. I do it for her, in spite of what others have either requested or even demanded me to do because for me, her happiness and Kevin's are all that truly matter.

On Christmas Day I found peace in the dark. A peace that I didn't want to let go of, a place where I could acknowledge my pain and yet, I found joy in my "new" life. I realized that my grief is still going to sneak up upon me and I will never forget my sons but I also will be blessed with immense happiness. Happiness, smiling, laughter and living doesn't mean that I am betraying my sons or their memory. It only means that I am living and sharing their lives, their story, their love with others.

A very close and wise friend left me with this quote and I never really really took it to heart and understood it until these last few days.

"Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that's all. You can't see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken, another heightens. Memory." ~Mitch Albom

Memory becomes my sons. It doesn't seem fair but it is all I have, it is how I hold them, how I dance with them, how I nurture them and how I love them.... Memory is all I am left with...at least for now.

11 Months

No words...hard to believe...

Missing you both so very much! I love you, Declan. I love you, Lucas.

Alone

I sit here on Christmas Day all alone with my thoughts and my tears. I didn't go to church today, I just didn't have the desire to sit and listen while watching all the happy families around me. I mainly wanted to avoid a place where there would be lots of new little babies all dressed up for the holiday. I just wanted sometime to myself so, that I could get it together before Mackenzie gets back and we have to do all the festive stuff at our aunt's house. I sit here struggling with how to get through the rest of this week, the days to come are going to be very trying on me. My chest feels like it is being crushed and yet, I know that I will need to find some joy in today for both myself, my husband and my daughter. I will find laughter as I watch her open her gifts and enjoy the company of family but for now, I need to let the tears come. For now, I need to feel the pain of not having you both here so that later I can allow myself to find some laughter amongst the tears. This is not the Christmas I had envision but it is what has been given to me and I don't have a choice but to endure through the pain and wrap my arms around the joy that will also be present.

To all of you mother's and father's on this journey of grief with us, I wish you peace and hope for the New Year. To my blog family and my real family, thank you for all your support, concern and love this year, I hope that this next year will be a better one. Maybe, we will be blessed with the gift of another child in 2009 that we can raise and love...atleast, that is what I hope and pray for in 2009.

Merry Christmas to all...
Melissa

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Declan and Lucas. We miss and love you both so very much! Wishing you were here with all my heart.

I love you.

Christmas Letter

December 24, 2008

Dear Declan and Lucas,

It is hard to believe that Christmas is here already. So much has changed from this year to last. Last year, we were filled with excitement, nerves and joy. This year, we are filled with grief, sadness and loneliness. We miss you both so very very much.

We received some very beautiful gifts in memory of you both. They were heartfelt and wonderful which of course brought tears to both of our eyes. Yet, it is hard to be joyful and excited when we are missing you both so very much. We try very hard for Mackenzie and our family to put on a happy face and try to live in the now but it is hard to not dwell in the past.

Your daddy has been very patient with me this week and last. I have been short tempered and emotional with him. I know he misses you just as much as me but sometimes, I take it out on him even though I don’t mean too. I am tired of being sad but the sadness just seems to be winning this time of year. I won’t give in but I honestly feel as if I am truly being tested.

We will be coming to visit you tomorrow and bringing your Christmas gifts. I hope you like the few presents that will be under your tree. I so wish I could see you open them instead of having to leave them in the snow untouched and to never be played with. All the same, I couldn’t not get you something to enjoy this Christmas it just wouldn’t feel right.

I know you are up in heaven with grandma and having a wonderful time. You are whole and you are healthy, but I still miss you all the same. So, many want for your daddy and me to be “all better” but that is still just going to take more time. Each “first” holiday or special date for us is so difficult to endure. We imagined what it “would” have been like with you here and it is hard to not let those visions fill our heads and consume our thoughts.

I am sending you both a huge hug and kiss. One for grandma, Lorraine, too. We love you both, so very much! Merry Christmas.

We love you,
Mommy, Daddy and Mackenzie
xoxoxo

Birthday...

So, today was my birthday and I can definitely say that I am a year older, a year wiser, and even a year stronger. I cried yesterday, in the car, thinking about turning 31. Not because I have a problem with being 31 but because another year has gone by and again I have had another pregnancy fail. Last year, I thought to myself, I am going to be 30 years old and have 3 children! How exciting, how tiring and how fun! Now, I am 31 and instead I still have my wonderful daughter at home to raise but my sons are gone. How did I go from having 3 children alive with me and all the happiness in the world to being a grieving mother of 2 children all by the age of 31? Today, I am struggling with my age in terms of becoming to old to have more children. How sad is that...31 too old. But, when you face fertility issues, they sure like to remind you of the statistics especially once you reach the dreaded age of 30 plus. I had this perfect little time frame all planned out and that time has come and gone and still my "family" here on earth is incomplete?

When I think back to my last birthday, I was so excited and so optimistic about having a healthy outcome. A year later, so much has changed... I am not that same person and I never will be again. I can't go back to whom I was before the boys died, when they died so did a large part of me. I can't be fixed, but I am working on being mended. I am getting stronger and I am definitely wiser. I know now that we really do have to take the bad with the good in our lives. We may not want to accept or understand all the bad but it is a part of life and we can't run from it. I am learning what it means to have faith even in our darkest moments and I am praying for the miracle of another life to be blessed upon us again. So, yes I am still grieving and yes, I am still sad and angry but I am also stronger and wiser. I miss my sons and that pain just doesn't vanish away because I am year older. That pain will always be there but just in more tolerable amounts as the years continue on without them.

My birthday wish is that by the time I am 32 we will either have or be expecting another healthy son or daughter that we get to bring home this time to be with us.

Shutting Down?

***Update***

I have decided to keep writing for me and for nobody else. If people don't like it or are too depressed, well then they don't have to read it. It is not for them, it is for me to be able to express all that I feel and I am doing it for me, not for anyone that reads it. Thank you too all of you whom encouraged me to keep going. I truly appreciate all of your support and kindness.

************************************************************************************

Thinking of shutting the blog down...had some stuff said to me about the blog. I will post later and let you know if I am getting rid of it.

Thanks to all of you who have read and supported me...

Melissa

Heavy Heart

I sit here with a heavy heart tonight because my family has suffered two deaths this week. My grandma passed away after a very long battle with cancer. She died in the comfort of her own home with her family around her and her husband holding her hand. It has been an extremely emotional time for me because we were so very close. She was more than just a grandma, she was like have a second set of parents to care for me and my sister. We talked so often and she was so funny, loving and compassionate. It was hard to see how quickly she deteriorated these last few weeks and how much she was suffering. I know she is up in heaven with my sons and I am so comforted by that fact. To know that she is loving them, holding them and caring for them for myself and Kevin. I think about her death and I am at peace with it. I miss her but I am so glad that she no longer has to suffer. I know that she has lived an amazing and long life for which we celebrated this week. Death is difficult but with my grandma it was to be expected for she was sick and she was elderly. What I can't understand is the death of a child?

Kevin's cousin lost her child this week. She found out that the child that she was carrying in her womb had Spina Bifida only a few short weeks ago. Her husband and herself found the strength to continue with this pregnancy and made the decision to not terminate but to love this child unconditionally no matter what the outcome was. Tonight, I sit here with such a heavy heart to learn that this unborn child died in her womb. I sit here knowing this awful journey that her husband and her are embarking upon and I am devastated for them. I don't know the details of her labor but I pray that it was swift and as pain free as possible. I hope that they both got to spend time as much time as they needed with their son after his birth, loving him, holding him and just being with him. I know that the time they spent will never seem like it is enough but I pray that they can focus on the memories they made with that little amount of time they had with him. I hope that the nurses knew to take as many pictures as possible and allowed for them to do whatever they needed as parents during this time with their son. 

When a grandparent or the elderly die it is to be expected. We expect that we will bury our grandparents and then our parents but we never expect to bury our children. It just doesn't seem right, it just doesn't fit in the order for what we expect in terms of death. We don't bury the young, it just doesn't make sense...it is hard to comprehend and accept. It is difficult to accept "why" God chooses the young to come to heaven instead of allowing them to be raised by their parents. When God choices a child as an angel, we question the wisdom of his love and the reason "why"? I have realized that it is okay to question and that god can take my questioning and even my anger. He will eventually in either this life time or in the next explain to me the "why" I just have to be patient and not give up my faith in him, my family, my strength in myself.

There is a quote that I like by an unknown author:

An angel of the book of life wrote down my baby's birth. Then whispered as she closed the book "too beautiful for earth." -author unknown

Each child is a beautiful gift from god. I have learned to not take anyone of my pregnancy for granted because there is no guarantees in life and especially not with pregnancy. Unfortunately for so some of us being pregnant is not an easy task because we have endured the worst due to miscarriage, premature birth, genetic defects and death of our babies. We learn to be more than cautious because we have suffered the no "guarantees" in our lives and our families. God sometimes blesses us with children and then takes them from us before we have had the chance to known them and raise them. We continue to love them unconditionally and we don't love them any less than those children that remain alive and in our lives to be raised by us. When you lose a child you are forever changed, there is no going back to the way it was before that child died. You are forever missing a pieces of your family and your heart. I am learning that while I wish the boys were here with me and knowing they never will be is different than accepting why they were taken from me. I can accept that they are in heaven but that doesn't mean that I have to agree with the fact that I didn't get the chance to raise them or know them. 

This is a long and painful road that I am learning to travel on but it is excruciating to know that another family member is just beginning her journey. This is one "club" that no mother wishes upon another mother. Telling her that her child is in a better place, may be true, but it is something that no mother ever wants to here. So, I ask that you pray for this woman and her family as they begin to find themselves on this dark path. Give them the strength to lean on each other and their family whom love them so. Pray for their hurting hearts and the wisdom to know that they did everything they could to protect and love their son. 

The saddest word, goodbye

When God calls our children

to dwell with Him above,

We mortals sometimes question

the wisdom of His love.

For no heartache compares with, 

the death of one small child.

Who does so much to make our world,

seem so wonderful and mild.

Perhaps God tires of calling

the aged to His fold.

So, He picks a rosebud

before it can grow old.

God knows how much we need them,

and so He takes but few.

To make the land of heaven

more beautiful to view.

Believing this is difficult

still somehow we must try.

The saddest word mankind knows

will always be Good-bye.

So when a little child departs,

we who are left behind,

Must realize God loves children.

Angels Are Hard To Find!

Author Unknown